


I Can't Promise You Anything (Except My Heart)

by ellacj



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Self Confidence Issues, it ends happily i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 12:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2269782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellacj/pseuds/ellacj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is one promise Emma won't break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't Promise You Anything (Except My Heart)

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I write too many oneshots. Just thought I'd tear out my own heart out again, and put it back together with band-aids and Scotch tape. Enjoy (:

It began with a fight.

Both of them said things they shouldn’t have, but it ends when Regina vanishes, gone in a cloud of violet smoke, leaving Snow standing speechless in the apartment.

“Must she always do that?” Snow says in annoyance.

“You said some pretty shitty things,” Emma replies. “I’m gonna try to find her.” She grabs her keys and goes to her bug. She’s pretty sure she knows exactly where Regina is. And sure enough, as she goes into the crypt, there’s a familiar gray coat slumped over in front of the coffin inside.

“Regina,” she says quietly.

Regina’s head whips up. “What are you doing here?” she hisses, wiping at her makeup-smeared eyes.

“I came to apologize. For Snow. She shouldn’t have said all those things.”

“No, she shouldn’t have.” Regina turns her gaze back to the coffin in front of her. “I promised myself I’d never be like her. Like my mother.”

Emma comes closer and hesitantly sits down beside Regina, relaxing a bit when she isn’t pushed away. “You’re not like her. You have your heart; you can _love_.”

“You know that all magic comes with a price. Do you know what my price was for casting the dark curse?”

“The thing you loved most.”

“Yes.” She runs her fingers over the smooth stone of the coffin in front of her. “It’s exactly what _she_ would have done. I barely thought twice before I killed him.” Her voice catches, and her next words are barely even a whisper. “And I can’t even regret it.”

“Because it gave you Henry,” Emma murmurs. She knows all too well of Regina’s feelings toward her deeds as queen, and honestly, she might even agree. If the curse had never been cast she wouldn’t have met Regina – at least, not in the same way. And they wouldn’t have Henry.

Regina leans forward and ghosts her lips over her father’s coffin. “Because it gave me Henry.”

“Look, I want you to know something. I don’t agree with my mother on this. You were a fantastic mother to Henry. And you will be again, once we figure out this Zelena bullshit. I’m really glad he had you. I’m sorry you missed a year of his life.”

“I’m sorry you missed ten.”

Emma bites her lip. “Snow told me something. When you guys first got back. She said you… you tried to…” she trails off, looking to Regina for a response.

Regina nods slowly. “I thought it would get easier as time went on, but it didn’t. I only missed him more with each passing day. And on his birthday-” she breaks off with a strangled sound from her throat. “There was a ceremony, in the Enchanted Forest. Everyone lit a lantern for him, and they cast them into the sky.”

Emma smiles. “That sounds beautiful.”

“I’m sure it was,” Regina says tightly. “I wasn’t invited.”

Rage churns in Emma’s stomach at that. Unable to find the right words to express it, she simply takes Regina’s hand and squeezes it. “I’m not gonna let them do that to you again,” she promises.

Regina lifts her head to meet Emma’s eye, her own eyes wide and so young yet so old, all at once. She’s been through so much, but she’s still so young deep down. “You’d do that?”

“Of course I would. You deserve to be in his life. You’re his mother.”

“Not anymore. Not this curse.”

“I told you, I don’t give a shit about what the law says. He’s _our_ son.”

Regina tilts her head thoughtfully. “Why are you doing this for me? I’m the _Evil Queen._ ”

“Oh, are we still pretending we’re not friends?” Emma raises an eyebrow. “Come on, Regina. I think we both know you’ve come way too far for us to call you that anymore.”

“Isn’t it funny – all the people I’ve pushed away, and I find comfort in the daughter of my most hated enemy.” She pauses to sigh. “I haven’t changed, Emma. That woman… she’s still in me. She could still come back.”

“I don’t think she will.” Emma squeezes her hand again. “She came about when you were trapped and alone. You’re neither of those things anymore. You’ve got a family now, Regina. Me and Henry. We’re your family.”

“I-”

“Don’t say you don’t deserve it,” Emma says firmly. “You’re wrong.”

Regina ducks her head. “Come with me.” She stands up and begins walking around the coffin, and Emma has no choice but to follow her.

“What are you doing?”

Wordlessly, Regina pushes her father’s coffin out of the way, revealing a staircase into an underground room. “I need to show you something.” She descends the stairs, Emma following close behind. She doesn’t want either of them to be alone right now, especially not in this scary crypt.

“Holy shit,” Emma says quietly as she enters the circular room. “What is this place?”

“My vault.” Regina stands in the center of the room, eyes closed, as though she were… listening. “Don’t you hear them?”

“Hear what?”

“Close your eyes. _Listen_.”

Slowly, Emma lets her eyes flutter shut and listens hard for the sound Regina’s talking about. And then she hears it. It’s quiet at first, just a small noise barely heard in the back of her mind. And then it gets louder. It multiplies. There’s hundreds of them, pounding in rhythm in her head.

A hundred heartbeats.

“Do you hear it now?”

Emma forces her eyes open, and the pounding ceases. “Yeah,” she gasps, finding herself doubled over, breathless. “What the hell was that?”

Regina opens her eyes, focusing her sharp gaze on Emma. “My collection.”

“Why do you have a bunch of hearts?”

“ _She_ brought them over. That old version of me you think is gone.” Regina strolls over to one of the walls and pulls out a box, opening it to look inside. “This one is empty. I got angry one night.”

“Whose was it?” Emma asks, finally able to stand upright.

“Graham,” Regina says in a tight voice as she turns away, tossing the box at Emma, who catches it reflexively.

It’s like a punch to the gut, finding out that the woman in front of her, the mother of her son, killed possibly the nicest man in the world. “Y-You?”

“I told you. She hasn’t disappeared. She’s still here, and it doesn’t take much to set her off.” Her voice is strained, as though this hurts her as much as it does Emma. “Just one night of insecurity, just a touch of jealousy, and a man is dead.” Finally, she turns to face her. “I’m dangerous, Emma.”

Shoving down her anger, Emma sets the box on the ground. “But you can control her now,” she insists. “I know she’s not going to come back because you’ll do anything to make sure you don’t lose Henry again.”

“How do you know? How do you know I won’t choose power over him? I did it once. I did it to my father.”

“Because I won’t let you.” Emma approaches her, taking both of Regina’s hands in her own. “I won’t let you get to that place again. You’ve been hurt enough times, Regina. I won’t let it happen again.”

Regina’s face is cold, but Emma can see something dancing in her soft brown eyes. “Were you really going to marry someone in New York?” she asks abruptly.

Emma sighs. “I don’t know. I mean, I thought I loved him.” She gives a small laugh. “That went a little bit wrong.”

Regina swallows and ducks her head to stare at the floor. “What was he like?”

“He had dark hair. Nice eyes. He always wore really nice pressed suits – come to think of it, he never actually told me what his job was. Guess it’s hard to get a job when you’re a monkey, huh?” Emma snorts. “I don’t know. He was a really good cook, too. He always made really good Spanish food. Said he was like an eighth Spanish or something.”

Regina slowly looks up to meet Emma’s eye, face asking a question left unspoken.

“Guess I have a type,” Emma says at a volume barely above a whisper. She leans forward, but she’s stopped by Regina’s finger on her lips.

“No.” Regina stands up, turning her back on Emma and crossing her arms over her chest. “You told me you wouldn’t let me get hurt again.”

“I won’t.”

“You can’t promise me that if we’re…” she trails off. “You can’t promise that.”

Emma stands up, tentatively standing behind Regina and covering her arms with her own. “You’re right. I can’t promise you anything. But sometimes you have to risk getting hurt in order to be happy.” She presses a soft kiss to Regina’s shoulder. “Sometimes it’s worth the risk.”

Regina turns her head, and their lips hover just inches apart. “Emma…”

“Do you want this?”

“Yes,” Regina breathes, bottom lip trembling ever so slightly. Fear dances in her eyes, and Emma squeezes her gently.

“Then let it happen.” Then Emma closes the distance between them. It’s soft and chaste, their lips barely moving at all before she pulls away just a few inches, still close enough to feel Regina’s breath on her lips. “Was that okay?”

“Yes.”

Emma turns Regina in her arms so that they face each other, but she keeps a firm hold on Regina’s hands. “I can’t promise you I won’t hurt you. I can’t promise you I won’t wake up one morning and freak out and take off. But I can promise you that I’ll always come back.”

Regina’s silent, eyes moving all over Emma’s face as though searching for a lie.

“And I can promise you that I will _never_ bring Henry into anything that’s between us. He’ll always be more important than any insecurities I’m having or any fight that’s going on. Okay?”

“I…”

Emma squeezes her hands. “We can just take it one day at a time. No pressure. The future’s always gonna be uncertain; we just have to take a leap of faith sometimes and hope for the best.”

Regina smirks. “Like you did on the ship?”

“Maybe use better judgment than I did,” Emma laughs. “But you’ve always done that. Look, I know you’ve taken a lot of chances in your life. Maybe take one on me?”

“I don’t know. I might need a little more convincing…”

Emma smirks and presses her lips to Regina’s again, running her tongue over her soft red lips in a request for entrance. When she breaks the kiss, Regina’s smiling. “So? You trust me to keep my promises?”

Regina grins. “Yes.”

“Good. Because you’re gonna need to trust me for this next thing.”

“What’s that?”

Emma smirks and presses a quick kiss to Regina’s lips before speaking. “You get to tell my mom.”

 


End file.
